LezPlay Finalists and Weekend Schedule Announced

Pride Films and Plays is delighted to announce the results of our 2016 LezPlay Contest. From nearly three dozen entries, five finalists have been selected to receive staged readings of their scripts during LezPlay Weekend, which runs October 7-9 at the Hoover-Leppen Theatre of Center on Halsted in Chicago.

LezPlay enhances the visibility and advances the viability of women who write plays, screenplays, and teleplays in which lesbian characters and themes – past, present, and future – play a pivotal role.

Best-selling novelist Vivienne throws a dinner party to charm Yasmin, an ingénue fresh off an Academy Award nomination, into starring in the movie adaptation of her novel. When Eleanor, Vivienne’s girlfriend, gets fired from her job, a night of chaos and disorder ensues. Truths come out from their closets, relationships are tested, and everyone must decide how bold they’ll be to secure the things they love.

Geraldine Inoa is a playwright and activist based in Brooklyn. She is a member of The Public Theater’s 2016-17 Emerging Writers Group. Her playFragments was a finalist for The Lark’s 2015 Playwrights’ Week. She holds a B.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

The Days Are Shorter by Corinne J. Kawecki (full-length play)

Julia believes that recovering her youth is the answer to all of her problems. She’s tried various ways, but her 53 years continue to dog her steps. We meet Julia in her crowded, disheveled bedroom. Many sleepless days and nights have taken her to the precipice of reality. Does Julia need to create a magical life in order to find her soul?

Corinne J. Kawecki has had her one-act plays produced across the country. Her playShort Expanse was a finalist in PFP’s Great Gay Play Contest in 2011. The Days Are Shorter and Free Radicals were semifinalists for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Corinne’s latest full-length play, Civil Wars, received a staged reading at Chicago Dramatists in 2015 and will receive another reading in August. She is a Network Playwright at Chicago Dramatists and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Fraying Live Wires Tend to Give Off Sparks by Lena Wilson (full-length play)

When college students Adela (straight, driven, a pragmatist) and Carter (gay, kind-hearted, a disaster) find themselves paired up as roommates during a summer in Manhattan, neither girl is completely sure how to act. Freshly laden with emotional baggage, the two spend the summer learning how to heal, how to move forward, and how to properly share a bottle of Pepsi.

Lena Wilson is a twenty-one-year-old graduate of Smith College, where she majored in film and gender studies. When not working retail, freelance writing about TV and film, or playing with her dog, Young Neil, Wilson strives to create worlds and roles for lesbians and otherwise marginalized persons. Fraying Live Wires Tend to Give Off Sparks is her first play.

To Bury a Stranger by Ann L. Gibbs and Judith Allen (short play)

A discreet lesbian couple in Topeka, Kansas, is enlisted to plan the funeral of their reclusive neighbor. While uncovering the details of her life, the couple learns the high price of living in the closet.

Ann L. Gibbs is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild, Academy of TV Arts and Sciences, Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (vice-chair), and Theatre West Repertory Company (Artistic Board). Ann lives with her first-time collaborator and partner of 26 years, Judith Allen, and their rescued terrier, Betty, in Valley Village, CA.

Judith Allen’s credits include plays and monologues presented at the 2015 Hollywood Fringe Festival, Theatre West, and Write Act Repertory Theatre. Her plays, Secrets in the Clouds and Marty’s Bromance, are published by ArtAge Publications. She has also received an Honorable Mention in the Jane Chambers National Playwriting Competition. Judith is a member of At Rise: Playwrights, Theatre West, ALAP, and the Dramatists Guild.

Watch Me Burn by Rae Binstock (full-length play)

This is the story of Prometheus “Methe” Graham, a young black firefighter in Harlem who is determined to rely on herself and no one else. But as the heat rises, the stress of her mother’s recent death, her teenage sister’s rebellion, her captain’s doubts, and her community’s disapproval creates a psychic holocaust that threatens to consume her from within.

Rae Binstock was raised in Cambridge, MA, and graduated from Columbia University. Her plays have been produced by organizations such as March Forth Productions, The Fresh Fruit Festival in New York City, and Red Theater Chicago. She is the author of a web series entitled Rejected and Tapes from Jane Street, an upcoming serial podcast. Rae has also received an artistic residency from The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation.

Allison Fradkin, LezPlay’s Literary Manager, assembled a reading team of theatre, film, and television professionals who served as adjudicators for the contest, evaluating the entries for concept and originality, structure, plot, dialogue, character development, and lesbian content.